Science Ticker

Too much ice prevented the research vessel from reaching the calving site

PACKED ICE Floating ice — 4- or 5-meters-thick in some places — choking the Weddell Sea ended a British Antarctic Survey research vessel’s mission to the Larsen C ice shelf in February. The mission planned to explore seafloor life newly exposed after a giant iceberg split off from the shelf last July.

"It was nature [that] defeated us," said principal investigator and marine biologist Katrin Linse of the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge in a video released by BAS March 2. “We knew this mission was high risk and high reward.”

Not all is lost, though. The vessel is now heading to the nearby Larsen A ice shelf, where an iceberg broke away in 1995. There, researchers will study a never-explored deep-sea seafloor ecosystem 1,000 meters beneath the ocean’s surface.

Linse will have another opportunity to visit Larsen C, however. She’ll join a 2019 expedition led by the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven, Germany.

New target

Researchers were headed to iceberg A68, which split off from the Larsen C ice shelf last July. But some 400 kilometers from their destination, ice forced the researchers to change course. They are now heading through relatively ice-free waters to the Larsen A ice shelf, where a giant iceberg broke off in 1995. No biological expedition has examined the seafloor since the break, said marine biologist Katrin Linse in a news release March 2. “We’re excited about what deep-sea creatures we might find.”